Unless this is among one of your first visits to my little corner of the Internet blogesphere, you know that I have a thing for interlocking towers. Not sure why, but they just are fascinating to me. I’ve only been in two in my life and by that time, they were all controlled electrically; no “armstrong” levers to pull to throw switches or set signals. But still, for some reason, these little trackside structures really intrigue me. So, as you can imagine, it was a treat for me to be able to buy this one via Ebay.

Revell was one of the earlier entrants into the HO scale model railroading field. I remember that our first train set was a Revell way back iin probably about 1960. But this tower predates that; there is a date on the instruction sheet of 1958. At this point, injection molded plastic structures were just beginning to make their way into the hobby. Looking at old MODEL RAILROADER magazines from that era, one can see that there were still lots of modelers building with wood & printed paperboard.

Another thing that I find of interest in older kits in general is the boxtop art. Revell and others at the time didn’t reproduce photos of their finished products. Instead, they used drawings of the model in a railroad setting. Many of the early AHM kits did the same and quite frankly, I wish that I could have some nice scans of many of those older kit boxes. They really are neat.

Anyway, there were no real surprises when I opened the kit after it arrived in the mail. Some would say that the kit parts are a bit crude and perhaps oversized in some of their detail but these kits were manufactured in the late 1950s so I would think that is to be expected.

Another surprise was the suggested kit price printed right on the box. What can you buy today for the grand total of… ninety-eight cents??!? It’s all relative though… I spent a lot of my teenage years cutting grass for a buck a yard. And, there was a time when gasoline was around a quarter a gallon.

This kit is interesting looking and, given my affection for interlocking towers, I’m sure that this one will find its way to the top of my “to build” pile of kits. I’ll be sure to share some pictures when it’s done… but that may be a while still.